Wormery – make your own worm compost!

A few weeks ago I wrote that I had ordered new worms for my wormery and I promised to tell you more about it in due course. So here goes…

Wormery

I bought my wormery a few years ago but the first time I used it I totally messed up and all the worms died. I know now what I did wrong and I am determined to do it right this time. The wormery I have is a base with a tap, three trays with holes in and a lid.

So how does it work? Well, you place one tray on top of the base and put newspaper on top of it. With the worms come some worm bedding that you need to wet a little and place on top of the newspaper and the worms go on top of the bedding. The second tray goes on top of the worms and you place a little bit of food on top. The idea is that when the worms have finished with the bedding they crawl through the holes to the food on tray two. After about a week or so you can place more food on tray two and keep going until the tray is full. You then place the third tray on top and start filling that one with food. By now the first tray with the bedding can probably be removed and placed on top of the third tray and so on.

After about 10 weeks you will be able to draw off liquid feed from the tap in the base. You can use this diluted with water as a fertilizer so, as well as compost you get great fertiliser as well.

Food

So what kind of food can you put in the wormery? Well almost anything really. Kitchen waste, coffee grounds, scraps from your plate, you name it. However be careful not to put in too much acidic food like orange peel, onion and garlic. To keep it from becoming too acidic add lime on a weekly basis. Egg shells help to neutralise it too. The main thing I like about this system is the fact that you can put cooked food in the wormery as well as raw.

Mistake

What I did wrong last time was to put too much acidic food in the wormery. Also I added too much food that contained a lot of water whilst not providing enough newspaper or tissue to soak up the liquid, so eventually my worms started drowning. This time though I’m doing it differently and my worms are already digging their new home. I check them once a week and see them happily crawling through the kitchen waste and shredded tissue I have placed inside. It looks disgusting but it doesn’t smell at all and in about nine months or so I will have some very potent worm compost!

If you are interested in having your own wormery then check out this one at amazon.com.

Hi Ruth, it will take about 9 months to get a good amount of compost from the wormery. However you will be able to use the liquid a lot sooner. The compost will be very potent so you can mix it with your potting soil or garden soil or you can use it as a top dressing for your indoor plants. Worm compost is vermicompost. I have seen worm castings already in the compost bin. The good thing about a wormery is that you can even make your own compost if you have a very small garden. In a few months or so I will write another post about this with pictures to show you how things are going.